Evolution: frog adaptation (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, September 26, 2017, 12:14 (482 days ago)@ David Turell

dhw: (under “Trees induce ants…” Another agreement. Today is a red letter day! Now we agree that bacteria are conscious, and that organisms have an autonomous, possibly God-given mechanism through which they can make changes to themselves without any input from your God. Therefore “God did it” could mean that he did it by providing cells/cell communities with the intelligence to create ALL the adaptations and innovations that have taken place throughout evolution.

DAVID: That is a jump in possibilities that I cannot accept. The gaps in evolution require foresight and planning that only a planning mind can provide.

Dhw (on this thread): So you will stick with your “explanation” that you don’t know why your God prepared pre-whales for life in the water eight different times over several million years, although his prime purpose was to create the human brain. […] The problem of the Cambrian gaps is solved if the autonomous mechanism for minor adaptations is also capable of major adaptations and innovations in response to the challenges and opportunities presented by changes in the environment. I accept that this is the big “IF”. The problem is also solved if there is an unknown, sourceless, intelligent mind that preprogrammed every single environmental change, major adaptation and innovation 3.8 billion years ago, or kept popping down to Earth to do the necessary. That is also a big “IF”.

DAVID: Yes big IF's. But those are the only two choices. The Cambrian gap was Darwin's biggest bugaboo. The sudden appearance of such complex organisms require enormous elements of foresight and planning. Within our experience we know that only a planning mind can accomplish such developments. That mind must exist.

We have no experience of such developments. None of us were around at the time, and so we do not “know” anything. We speculate. Why should it be beyond the bounds of possibility that your all-powerful God could invent a mechanism capable of autonomous innovation? Besides, we should not forget that your hypothesis is not confined to Cambrian gaps, or are you now withdrawing your insistence that only your God could have designed the weaverbird’s nest, the monarch’s lifestyle, the parasitic wasp etc.?